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Playin' Footsie

This has been a bizarre Fall season in terms of driving. Over the last few weeks I've noticed a tremendous amount of dead squirrels all over the roadways. Totally depressing. As a matter of fact, on Friday I was zipping along the on-ramp to I-93 from I-495 on my way home when I saw 3 squirrels running frantically on the pavement in front of me.

Well. If you know how I am about cats, then you can pretty much apply that to any small furry animal. I slammed on my brakes and stopped the car altogether, while the 3 squirrels darted back and forth. I watched, horrified as 2 of them decided to cross the short grassy patch separating my ramp from the one in the opposite direction.

A minivan came barreling around the curve on the other side and thankfully the 2 squirrels retreated to my side. Then they froze in front of my car. I glanced in the rearview mirror. Whoops! A significant amount of traffic was stopped behind me.

The three squirrels were facing the forest to my right, so I crossed my fingers, honked my horn and breathed a sigh of relief as they leaped into action and disappeared into the brush.

*whew*

To my surprise, none of the drivers behind me got impatient. Generally if you even so much as slow down in Massachusetts for no apparant reason, you can count on getting beeped at, followed by some lovely hand gesture.

Maybe it's just something in the Summer-transitioning-into-Fall air that inspires Weirdness Behind The Wheel? Like Monday morning, I was on my way up 93 North in the left lane when I noticed the car in front of me repeatedly swerving. After the 5th time the car zigzagged from left to right, I sped up to get a better look.

As I got closer I saw that the driver kept bending down. He'd disappear from view for a good 5 seconds, the car would veer to one side and then he'd pop his head up.

Suddenly I saw this (you all know by now I take my camera everywhere):

And he stayed like that the whole way until I got off at my exit. The swerving had stopped once the foot was out at least.

But what the hell was that about??? At first I thought maybe he was giving his foot some air, except that couldn't be the case because he left his shoe on.